Meeting the dual demands of global competitiveness and redistributive development: constraints and opportunities for the historically black universities

Subotzky, George

Abstract:Under the influence of globalisation and new forms of partnership with industry, new knowledge traditions have emerged, leading to significant changes in the production, dissemination and evaluation of knowledge. Within the fundamental reconstruction of higher education in South Africa, South Africa's eleven HBU's face the double challenge of detaching themselves from their Apartheid past and redefining their mission and function within the emerging national planning framework. In this chapter, Subotzky discusses fundamental concerns surrounding the future of development of Historically Black Universities (HBU's). In attempting to understand the opportunities and challenges facing them, the author attempts to answer a range of questions which are addressed in sequence in this chapter. The argument which follows first draws out a number of distinct but related tensions underlying globalisation, South Africa's emerging economic development policy and the emerging higher education framework. It then examines the implications of globalisation for the HBUs in the light of the findings of a major study on the HBUs conducted by the Education Policy Unit at the University of the Western Cape. The final part of the paper focuses on some speculative ideas about implications for universities and knowledge production of pursuing both global competitiveness and redistributive development as complementary aspects of an economic development strategy.